Musings, dreams, thoughtcrimes.

Moral legislation, social hypocrisy

Jeffrey Rosen, in an excellent article, reminds us that moral legislation is far from dead. Indeed, as Rosen points out, the repeal of certain laws (such as those that criminalized homosexuality) should not be viewed as a victory for civil libertarianism but merely as a statement that American society no longer views the concerned act as wrong. An important distinction, in my opinion.

However– as Eugene Volokh points out — Rosen, oddly, does not refer to the recent case in which the old Texas ban on dildoes was struck down on the grounds that it violated the right of “adult consensual sexual intimacy in the home.” Assuming that a significant proportion of Texan society looks down upon such toys, that case was a rare victory for the libertarian principle of personal freedom.